“He won’t be able to change that much in a year. Iowans already have their conclusions about Obama,” Kennedy said.

Iowa men, young people propel Paul

The Republican candidate who does best in Iowa matchups against Barack Obama is Ron Paul, a three-time presidential candidate and a libertarian-leaning congressman from Texas.

“Ron Paul lives,” said Register pollster J. Ann Selzer.

His popularity surprised Selzer, but the poll data line up with last year’s Iowa Poll at this time — same proportion of young people, same proportion of Republicans.

“The Paul finding does not appear to be an artifact of an odd poll,” she said.

Selzer observed that the two candidates who do best in the poll, Paul and Rick Santorum, have not yet had to endure the onslaught of negative advertising that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have faced. Given Santorum’s recent caucus and primary wins, his turn in the cross hairs may be imminent.

Exit polling in 2008 showed Obama won with support of 56 percent of women and 66 percent of the under-30 vote. Paul strips him of some of the youth vote. Fifty-five percent of Iowa likely voters under 35 go with Paul and just 39 percent with Obama. Men also drive Paul’s lead over Obama. Among likely male voters, it’s 54 percent for Paul, 36 percent for Obama.

A constellation of reasons draws some Iowa Democrats, Republicans and independents to Paul, not one unifying issue.

Jeff Krider, 50, of Adel, an Obama voter four years ago, thinks Obama could do a good job “if he had the backing of the people in the House, but there’s a communication problem there.”

Right now, Paul looks most appealing of all the candidates because he never sidesteps issues, said Krider, a Democrat who works on a chicken farm.

“We spend too much time worrying about what other countries are doing when ours is falling apart,” Krider said. “We have outrageous unemployment going on, and people are losing homes, and we’re over in some faraway land spending billions when it could be spent helping our own people out.”

Paul is the only Republican he’d vote for, Krider said. If Paul’s not the nominee, Obama gets his vote.

Almost an equal number of likely Iowa voters view Paul unfavorably (41 percent) as view him favorably (42 percent).

Santorum strong with conservatives, but not youth vote

Rick Santorum, who pulled off a last-minute stunner in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and is now looking like a national contender, would beat Barack Obama in Iowa if the general election were held today.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who served in Congress from age 32 to age 49, bests the president by 4 percentage points.

Santorum, 53, a father of four boys and three girls, is immovably opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage and talks frequently about fiscal sanity and protecting Israel from the radical theocracy of Iran.

Who are his supporters? He is strong among conservatives, Republicans and tea party backers.

Newt Gingrich would lose to Barack Obama in Iowa by 14 percentage points if the general election were today.

Most conservatives stick with Gingrich, but 20 percent of conservatives dislike Gingrich so much that they would give their vote to Obama.

In comparison, in a race between Mitt Romney and Obama, just 11 percent of conservatives side with the Democrat.

Gingrich’s negatives are worse than the president’s.

Fully 65 percent of Iowa adults view him unfavorably, while just 24 percent have favorable feelings.

He ruled the top of the Iowa Poll in November, when 44 percent of likely GOP caucusgoers said they would be “very enthusiastic” in their support for the former U.S. House speaker were he the nominee, way ahead of Ron Paul at 31 percent and Romney at 28 percent.